Sita&Nate's Planning Thread - La Zebra Tulum Wedding

I haven’t been as active on this forum as I could have been, but I would like to give back now by posting a planning thread (my favourite kind of thread, much like everyone else!). BDW has been my escape from the stress of completing a Masters degree while working almost full-time and being sucked into numerous work related projects, so thank you Tammy for hosting this forum! This forum has kept me sane. I am getting married May 5th, 2010 in Tulum!

After 8 years of being together, FI asked me to marry him on our trip to Australia. It was definitely a huge surprise and something I was not expecting! We went out on a trip to Whitehaven Beach (supposedly one of the best beaches in the world) on the north-ish east coast of Australia. It is only accessible by boat, and we were hanging out there for lunch. It was beautiful, with pure white sand beach and fish swimming everywhere in crystal blue waters. I found out that in Australia, it is either sharks or poisonous jellyfish that will get you in the waters. Where we were, the danger was with the jellyfish, so we all had to wear fullbody suits (tele-tubby suits). He was acting very strange while we were playing around in the water—not responding to any of my comments or questions. I was like “What’s wrong with him?” When we were away from the crowd, while we were sitting in the water, he got extremely quiet and fidgety (struggling to pull out the ring under his suit in his swim trunks). He finally pulled out this ring, a beautiful 1.3 karat princess cut Tacori-inspired ring that he had custom made, and asked “Will you marry me?”, as I was too shocked to respond, he motored on to say “I take that as being a yes” and promptly shoved the ring on my finger. This is the ring:

I really wanted to be married in Tulum beach, where FI and I spent a dream day on our last trip to Mexico. So, about a month ago, I started looking at wedding planners in the Tulum area and found Destination Weddings Tulum (

Our DIY boarding pass invites. Thanks to the templates created by Aylee Bits:

I asked my sisters and 2 friends to be my bridesmaids using these â€œTiffanyâ€ Cards. On the front is each bridesmaidâ€™s name. Inside was the question: Will you be my bridesmaid/sister of honor and a poem that I happily got from google. I ordered them from embellishedbytiffany on etsy and she was awesome to work with. I was very happy with them.

Our package includes 2-45 minute sets of live music, so we will have the Trio Veracruzano playing before the ceremony. Our guests will be brought from the Barcelo resort and greeted with lemon and hibiscus water.

My brother is a photojournalist and a great photographer and originally he had volunteered to shoot my wedding. Although it would have saved us money, I wanted him to be able to enjoy our wedding. But thanks to a generous wedding gift from my parents, we will be able to have our dream photographers. Our photographer for the wedding day will be Sol Tomargo from Del Sol Photography.

So far, they have offered great communication, and we can't wait to meet Sol Tomargo. We will do a trash the dress session with Rachel Schrank from Playaweddings. Rachel is a sweetheart and lovely to communicate with. I am so excited to have them as our photographers.

My wedding dress is the 2nd dress I bought and I love love love its simplicity. I bought the first one on a whim, thinking it fit all my criteria (sweetheart neckline, trumpet skirt) but cannot lift a finger compared to the dress I ended up ordering from Aria bridesmaids out of LA surprisingly! My dress that I will wear to the ceremony is made with shantung silk and also sweet heart top with mermaid skirt, but is as different as night and day with my first dress. I will use my first dress as my trash the dress or sell itâ€¦..

I am very happy with the dress except for an area of imperfection that has ripply area at the front of my dressâ€”hopefully it can be pressed out. Oh, and I should add, I get my braces off in T minus 15 days, woohoo!!!!

I got a mermaid crinoline to wear underneath it to give a pop of color (I heart pink). I got this custom dyed crinoline from localovespirate from etsy.com

This necklace I ordered from Erinkeys on etsy.com. I love the silk ribbon.

I will be wearing Juicy Couture flip flops (although I repeatedly looked at gorgeous fuschia heels from Stuart Weitzman and Kate Spade!! I donâ€™t really want to sink backwards in the sand

My ceremony veil will be a mantilla style veil (so romantic!). I got mine from rohm on etsy and I HEART it! I will post pictures after my hair trial today.

These are my hair inspiration pictures. I want my front to be loose and curly, but the back to be in a chignon

After some research on BDW, I decided on getting Fernando Fuentes and his partner to do my hair and make up. He will also be doing hair for my mom and my 4 bridesmaids. He has been extremely easy to get in contact with and I have no doubt that he will make me look great  . I am going for the golden, goddess look ^^. We will be getting ready in the Ownerâ€™s Suite of La Zebra.

I am all about the bling and ordered this bracelet from BijouxDJV on etsy. Erica was wonderful to work with. Mine is in ivory because my first dress is ivory. Because I am going to wear a white dress now, I may not end up wearing the bracelet. I will see on the wedding day.

Our Welcome/OOT bags were made by my good friend who is sadly unable to make it to Mexico. She went to the fabric store, took pictures of patterns she liked and had me choose one and kindly sewed 15 of them for me! Definitely makes a girl feel loved 

It will have a beach towel (good olâ€™ IKEA) per person and â€œpersonalizedâ€ travel mugs that I bought off of Taghan, fellow BDW member (Thanks again!), Lip Balm with SPF (from AVON), a mini water gun (dollar store), a games book (Sodoku, crossword, or word find). Being a nurse, I will happily be everyoneâ€™s pharmacy and first aid person, so I did not make hang-over/med/first aid kits. I am still working on the welcome booklets. I may add in some wet wipes and anti-bacterial hand sanitizer.

My wedding colors are fuschia and with accents of sunset orange, aquas and mossy green (sounds a bit much eh What can I say, I love color and had a really hard time deciding!!).

My bridesmaid bouquets are actually going to be ranunculus pomanders/kissing balls, which I got from the Stephanie at cre8tivedesign4u on etsy. The pomanders basically look like this except with moss green ribbon. Two of them are cream colored, and 2 of them are fuschia colored.

I got white and hot pink parasols from asianideas.com. Excellent service, I got the items 2 days after I ordered them (and I live in Canada!). FI and my sister both agree that it is of good & sturdy quality and they look great. I had thought I would have them out for the wedding ceremony, but I will probably be giving them to my mother and bridesmaids so that they don’t get unsightly tan lines before the big day (the only thing I am going to be bridezilla about!).

All the bridesmaids carry a parasol along with their pomander. FI will be wearing his linen suit that we ordered from studio suits (great service! It’s not exactly like a Harry Rosen suit, but for 99 dollars, cannot be beat!). He is refusing to let me take a picture of him in it .

Groomsmen will be wearing khaki/tan pants with a white shirt. Bridesmaids who are my sisters, FI’s sister and my good friend will be multi-colored and non-matching. I told them to get dresses that they loved in a jewel toned color. No pictures sorry!

We got ties for our dads from rabbitstop on Etsy. Highly recommended! They are 100% silk, handmade ties and they were a bargain at less than $20 each. They are even better looking in person. I wish I had found rabbitstop sooner. Heaven knows we’ve paid like more than $80 for ties elsewhere before. The marigold one is for my dad and the blue one is for his dad.

Our ceremony will be at 4:30 – 5:00 and will be symbolic. We will do the cake cutting and champagne toast soon after then move on to pictures. We are having green ceviche and pico de gallo for our cocktail hour and have the mariachi group play as well.

This is the ocean-facing palapa where we will have dinner. We will have a U shape configuration and our package includes 3 centerpieces made of fuschia roses and green mums.

We will our first dance just before dinner, and if we can find some long sparklers in Playa Del Carmen, will have our guests light those up while we do our first dance. It will be a very short song (Adam Sandlerâ€™s â€œI Wanna Grow Old with Youâ€ from the Wedding Singer movie) as we canâ€™t dance and have no rhythm .

I am hoping to buy some maracas in PDC as well for our guests to shake for a kiss, which will also double as wedding favors.

This is our dinner menu, I canâ€™t wait! I am hoping to change the shrimp quesadilitas to tortilla lime soup though (my favourite!)

Mini Shrimp quesadillitas

Chicken marinated with fresh coconut and habanero

Fish filet with garlic and tamarind reduction

Empanadas with huitlacoche and chile de Arbol

Pambasitos filled with sausage and potatoes with Cottage cheese

Jalapeno peppers stuffed with manchego cheese and tamarind

Lobster with mango and fresh coconut

After dinner, I will be surprising my guests with fire dancers who will be doing a 20 minute set on the beach deck where we will be hanging out the rest of the evening, talking, dancing, drinking and smoking cigars. I will have pashminas (Thanks MexicoBeachBride!)for all the ladies and the men if they would like.

Here is what the beach deck looks like. Apparently they have rockinâ€™ salsa parties on Sundays on the beach deck. I want the deck to be surrounded with luminaries and lanterns. The great thing is that I donâ€™t have to rent any lounge furniture as it is already all there.

After everyone has tired out, the vans will take our guests back to Barcelo while FI and I will spend our wedding night there!

Oh yes, this is our â€œguest bookâ€, an 8â€ by 10â€ print I am order from erinjaneshop on etsy. I havenâ€™t received it yet, but she has customized it by putting our initials in the heart on the tree and adding our wedding date. We will frame it after the wedding.

Thanks for browsing! Wedding planning has been an emotional roller coaster, sometimes bumpy, and not always fun (Iâ€™ve cried numerous times). Many thanks to all the wonderful, creative, kind ladies and moderators on BDW. You have been a never-ending source of inspiration for me. And Thank you ETSY! I am open to any questions 